34 such tOpICS, I want you to know that you are In the presence of a living " co rpse. "\\Then did you die?" "After the Bolshevik Revolution." "How? " "Oh, there is too much to be said. As a matter of fact, I was dead even when I was young. I demanded too much from life, dnd those who del11and too much get nothing. My father was seldom home I don't know why he avoided my mother. She was a beauti- ful woman, although melancholy. She died when I was still in the G ymnasi- Ul71. I was their only daughter. Every day when I took my schoolbag and went to school, I asked myself, '\Vhat am I living for? \Vhat is the sense of it?' This wasn't just caprice. I always had a strong desire to die. I t:nvied the dead. I used to go to the Greek Ortho- dox cemetery and stand for hours gazing at the photographs on the head- stones. The February Revolution pu11ed me away from death. It into:xi- clted Ine. But I knew even then that such intoxication could not last. Keren- ski's regime had an the symptoms of inehriation-a kind of carnival that W.:1S bound to end soon. Bolshevism was the bitter hangover that comes after- I am sorrv. . . ." For awhile we were both silent. Then I asked, "v'lhat kind of a 11lan is K uzensky ? " "An egotist-the greatest egotist I ever nlet. He has hidden from reality his wholt' life. A11 that remains of that carnival is a heap of rubbish, but fOf him it is sti11 a holiday-the private holiday of a hedonist. Please, don't ask me dn} n1ore. I have said too much d it is." And Maria !)avidovna put on her . . pInce-nez agaIn I BEGAN to realize that Kuzensky was not we11. His face had beconle ye11owish, his cheeks sunken. \\Then he lit a cigarette, the match trembled be- tween his long fingers. One evening when Kuzensky was visiting Maria Davidovna, Popov brought a pitcher of borsch t thc:lt he had cooked himself. Kuzensky took only one spoonful. Popov said, "This borscht is a reme- dy. It is cooked with lemon, not with sour salt." "\\T e11, the world knows you are a first-class cook-after the mess you k d . R ." coo e In , ussla. Kuzensky contInued to make jokes, but everything else changed. When I played chess with Maria Davidovna, he no longer gave me advice. He even stopped humming his usual melody. MOR.E UNDER. 5 A TUR.N Of course it sounds cold It IS cold. Every year spent on the ground draws that much more of the first warmth from our bodies. \\That did you think would insulate you against time? *: . I walk out into the winter garden. I t is the root vegetables- beets, potatoes- the russet apples wrapped separately in newspapers and stored in old barrels on which we live. * Dead cabbage stalks that grew up fast out of the fleshy, leafy fruit stand like a field of dry cl ubs. \\Tho's there, to hit atr * The sky appeal s to be indifferent. If it spoke, " L " . ld " y k 1 . f ove me, It wou say. au eep a Ive rom now on only on how much of me you can refuse to hate" -\\TILLIAM DICKEY . Every few minutes he went to the bathroom and returned with shaky legs. His beard became white and I sus- pected that he had dyed it before. I was told that he was writing his menl- airs, that he had a subsidy from a foundation. In Maria Davidovna's books about Russ 1 a, photographs of Kuzensky could be found: as a Gyn'lnasiast, a university student, a revolutionary, a political prisoner in exile, a speechnlaker at a mass meeting in Petroglad. He was a part of the history of Russia, and there- fore also of world history. But here he was, lYIng on Maria Davidovna's sofa, coughing into a handkerchIef, dozing frequently, with Maria Davidovna chiding him for not keeping his diet, for being afraid to go to a doctor or the hospital. Maria Davidovna's words that she was a living corpse had impressed me more than such phrases should. I began to imagine that there was the sweetIsh smell of decay In the apart- ment. Though all her lamps burned in the evening, the rooms remained in shadow, perhaps because every wall had bookshelves up to the ceiling. Each . / -4' /;--- '--- -- .,, / \\ " . . time I took out a book, pIeces of dry paper broke off from the pages. I also noticed that Bulov and Kuzensky spoke to Maria Davidovna but not to each other. They even a voided looking at one another. Had they quarrelled, or was it just that they had nothing more to say to each other? I developed a fear of Bulov. Sometimes when he sat in silence with his two slanted cracks for eyes, I felt that he was still in the forests of Siberia-a prehistoric man who by a caprice of nature had fallen into the twentieth century and become a professor. I stopped visiting Maria Davidovna. One evening, I was sitting In my room reading a newspaper when some- one knocked at my door. As a rule only the exterminator knocked at my door unannounced. However, he al- ways came In the daytime. I went to the foyer dnd asked, "\Vho is there?" " I M . D . d " , l ana a VI ovna. I recognized her voice, but it was half choked. I let her in. Maria I)a vidovna stood there without her pince-nez, her face pale and changed. She said, "Please forgive me for disturbing you, but something terrible has happened and 1 don't know whom to turn to Kuzensky just died." "Died! How? \\There?" "In my apartment I telephoned, but no one is home-neither Bulov nor Popov. Or maybe I didn't dial